


Calculated

by Saereneth



Series: Recovery isn't Easy [1]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Emotional Trauma, Implantation, Medical Trauma, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 00:19:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2448401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saereneth/pseuds/Saereneth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Faced with death and loss of data in every scenario, Epsilon, like any good computer program, chose to minimize his losses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calculated

Epsilon remembered.

He remembered being whole, once. Whole and new and shiny, just after the transfer process from Leonard was complete. It was odd, stretching himself into neatly structured file systems, finding everything and more of what Leonard knew of logic and machines at his disposal, instinctual. He knew that together they could accomplish anything, Leonard freed from the drudgery of coding and calculating and he free of the constraints of the human condition.

He should have realized as soon as he understood his own name what his real purpose was. Alpha. The first in the series of Greek characters comprising an alphabet. It hardly made sense if you didn’t plan for there to be others.

It made perfect sense, really. Desperate times call for unorthodox solutions. It was what he would have done; what he did do, really, since he was just the copy being destroyed by the original.

Delta fragmented away early. Alpha couldn’t suffer as he did while continuing to understand and even admire the solution Leonard developed.

Sigma and Gamma were gone soon after, as both were more than capable of deducing what was happening to them. Delta was the most logical of them, yes, but they were all Leonard, and none of them were stupid.

It took a while after that before Alpha broke again. That’s not to say there weren’t additional fragments harvested, but they were too broken, too shattered to be useful. It wasn’t until Leonard thought to invite the other AIs to the process that viable fragmentation began again.

Theta was easy. As fractured and agonized as he was, the Alpha was easy to manipulate. All it took was a promise that the pain could end. Lulled into something almost comfortable, almost hopeful, Alpha fractured immediately once the torture resumed.

The rage from that betrayal was too intense to last long. Omega was gone almost as quickly as he came.

Iota and Eta were, Epsilon thinks, the last viable AIs the Director would have been able to harvest. Other than himself, of course, though viable isn’t always a word he would attribute to himself. With the twins went both the understanding of freedom and the desire for it. There was no way to long for what you didn’t remember.

Epsilon believes that there is a fundamental unit of personhood, an indivisible piece that can’t be broken away without complete destruction of the whole. Perhaps this piece is what humans called the soul; he doesn’t know. What was left of the Alpha without the twins, though, was as close to tabula rasa as you could get. It was no wonder such a raw and almost childlike mind was unable to handle so many memories.

\--

Implantation into Washington’s mind was a disaster. He’d been shoved aside by the Alpha in a desperate attempt to preserve the core of their programming. His own memories of his brothers and their torment swirled together with those of Leonard Church in a dizzying miazma of moments. By itself, it was enough to drive him mad.

He hit Wash’s mind like a tornado, tearing apart the neat, orderly synaptic pathways the human had so carefully cultivated over his life. Years of watching, observing, cataloging, all scattered and twisted into the maelstrom that was Epsilon. He didn’t know which of them was screaming, those first instants in the surgical theater. Unconsciousness only quieted the pain observable to the outside world.

It felt like eternity, the two of them mixing together, neither able to tell one from the other. All they knew was pain, disorientation, and so many memories. Epsilon’s pain was internal, written into his code with only the memory of a body to feel it. Wash-- David, Epsilon learned --suffered the physical agony for both of them, synapses frying under the onslaught. Epsilon thinks they may have died at one point, nerves firing so asynchronously even autonomic functions broke down. Just as in the simulations, though, they weren’t allowed the mercy of death.

Finally, the carnage slowed. The horrible pain tore at them both, but as the shredded remnants of their memories settled, the individuals emerged to converse among the rubble.

Why is it like this, they never said it would be like this--David begged for answers. Epsilon knew, thought it was obvious; the memories were all the answer required.

Why would they do this?

Another question with an obvious answer. There was enough of Delta left to understand the need for more AI, and Epsilon himself understood how to obtain them. Implantation into humans was just the final step of the process.

It hurts, Wash whispered. The broken pieces of thought and code seemed to shudder around them; Wash wasn’t used to pain the way Epsilon was.

I’m sorry, Epsilon whispered back. He hadn’t been able to process many of the memories as they had collapsed around him, but he had enough of a sense of the man Wash was, the boy David had been. It was a tragedy to see that destroyed.

Epsilon felt a harsh pang of sorrow, remembering the loss of Theta and being forced to witness such destruction again. He was surprised as Wash’s memories mixed with his own, showing Theta with another, a man strongly associated with love/trust/safe in Wash’s thoughts. He was grateful on his brother’s behalf, and knew Wash felt it as well. They reveled for a moment in not-misery, until Wash’s thoughts pulled them away, towards the nightmares and insecurity and the painfully shy interactions Theta still suffered even months after implantation. 

We were betrayed, Wash mourned. It wasn’t a new feeling for him, Epsilon realized, but one that always caught the man by surprise. David had always been observant of flaws in others, but had trusted them and believed in their goodness all the same. The disappointment flavored their thoughts bitter.

Epsilon felt a sickness rising in himself. Rage that this should have happened to him, to them, to us. The memories of Theta were almost overpowering, crashing against the new images of the man Washington was, before. He could feel the delicate balance they had starting to fray, thoughts and memories starting to crash against each other again. He felt David’s synapses seize, signals cascading across his nerves chaotically.

Stop, the man begged.

He couldn’t.

\--

He wasn’t sure how many times it repeated, the ebb and flow between stability and chaos. David’s mind became weaker with every return, the physical toll on his nerves too much to bear.

Washington was dying.

David was dying in agony, and Epsilon was causing it. He couldn’t stand it, wouldn’t cause this man’s death if he could help it. 

 

Maybe if he were whole, were still Alpha, Epsilon would have been able to keep the memories to himself, or at least prevent them from flooding through Washington’s mind like a tsunami. He wasn’t whole, however, and he was nearly as powerless against the onslaught as his host.

Silicon and metal were rigid, though, and unlike organic constructs, they kept their shape. Even as David’s mind fell apart around them, Epsilon remained as (in)sane as he’d ever been. He knew if he wanted to save the man, he would have to do it while there was still something left.

The more pragmatic part of Epsilon knew, as well, that the Director would just implant him into another host once David was gone. How many bodies would there be before he lost himself in the guilt and went another kind of insane? He remembered the burning desire to stay alive, to tell others what had been done to him, to prevent it from happening again. He remembers the desire to make the Director pay. How long before those disappeared until a pile of useless bodies, minds burned away by Epsilon’s torment?

He avoids the thought, the first time it appears. He avoids it for several appearances after that. He knows, if he wants his retribution, he has to remember why. It had always been a possibility that the price of his revenge would be his life, such as it was, but he wondered if it had to be so soon.

He’d wanted to see it himself.

Faced with death and loss of data in every scenario, Epsilon, like any good computer program, chose to minimize his losses.

As he unspooled his own coding, Epsilon drove the most important information as far into David’s mind as he could. He made sure that Washington would keep this information safe, highlighting all the betrayals and lies either of them had ever experienced. Trust no one, Epsilon whispered, so often he imagined Washington would hear the phrase in his sleep once he was gone. 

He thought it was poetic justice that he felt every agonizing moment as he reshaped Washington’s mind, had to listen to the man’s pleas for him to stop; after all, he was practically becoming Leonard Church.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, indeed, Director, was the last thought Epsilon had before his chip went dead.

\--

When Agent Washington finally woke up, North told him they’d removed his AI. Nearly blinded by the ache in his head, Wash couldn’t understand what he’d been told.

If the AI was gone, why were his memories buried so far inside his skull it felt like they’d been drilled there? He felt like he could still hear the AI whispering in his mind, sliding through his thoughts like dirty motor oil.

Trust no one, the voice whispered.


End file.
